Ink-jet printers offer a low cost, high quality, and comparatively noise-free option to other types of printers commonly used with computers. Such printers employ a resistor element in a chamber provided with an egress for ink to enter from a plenum. The plenum is connected to a reservoir for storing the ink. A plurality of such resistor elements are arranged in a particular pattern, called a primitive, in a printhead. Each resistor element is associated with a nozzle in a nozzle plate, through which ink is expelled toward a print medium. The entire assembly of printhead and reservoir comprise an ink-jet pen.
In operation, each resistor element is connected via a conductive trace to a microprocessor, where current-carrying signals cause one or more selected elements to heat up. The heating creates a bubble of ink in the chamber, which expels ink through the nozzle toward the print medium. In this way, firing of a plurality of such resistor elements in a particular order in a given primitive forms alphanumeric characters, performs area-fill, and provides other print capabilities on the medium.
Ink-jet inks, when printed on various substrates, including bond paper, copier paper, and other cellulosic media, require a period of time in which to dry. Smears and smudges can occur while the ink is still wet or tacky on the surface of the paper being printed on. Moreover, the speed of the printer itself is affected by the ink dry time. The longer it takes for the ink to dry, the longer the printer must delay release of the freshly printed paper so that the ink can dry on the sheets of paper to a sufficient point so that the sheets do not smudge on another.
Moreover, many ink-jet inks, when printed in various colors on bond paper, copier paper, and other media, can lead to bleed and halo. Bleed and halo occur as colors mix both on the surface of the paper being printed on and in the paper. The terms "bleed" and "halo", as used herein, are defined as follows. When inks of two different colors are printed next to each other, it is desired that the border between the two colors be clean and free from the invasion of one color into the other. When one color does invade into the other, the border between the two colors becomes ragged, and this is called bleed. This is in contradistinction to uses of the term "bleed" in the prior art, which often defines "bleed" in the context of ink of a single color following the fibers of the paper. When dye-based inks are printed adjacent to pigment-based inks, the dye-based ink may invade the pigmented ink causing a whitish edge to form in the pigmented ink. This is known as halo, and is most often observed when dye-based color inks are printed adjacent to pigment-based black inks.
Prior solutions to bleed have largely involved the use of heated platens or other heat sources and/or special paper. Heated platens add cost to the printer. Special paper limits the user to a single paper, which is of a higher cost than a plain paper. Another way to reduce bleed involves increasing the penetration rate of the ink into the paper. However, increasing the penetration rate reduces the edge acuity (lowers the print quality of the ink). Nevertheless, this method is acceptable for printing color ink because of the lesser importance of color text quality. However, print quality is important for black ink. Hence, alternate bleed control mechanisms are needed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5, 428,383 teaches a method to control bleed in multicolor ink-jet printing involving the use of multi-valent metal salts as precipitation agents in a first ink composition. The precipitation agent is designed to react with the coloring agent in a second ink composition.
A solution to the specific problem of black to yellow color bleed is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,198,023 wherein multivalent cations such as calcium chloride and magnesium chloride are added at concentrations ranging from about 1 to about 10 wt % to yellow cationic inks to prevent bleed between yellow and black inks. However, it has been determined that the addition of large amounts of multivalent cations to thermal ink-jet ink compositions may induce precipitation of dye salts, requiring further adjustments in the ink composition. U.S. Pat. No. 5, 518,534 teaches the use of a first ink having a pigment dispersion and the second ink containing a salt of an organic acid or mineral acid wherein said salt reacts with said first ink to alleviate bleed between the inks. However, in this case, the pigment requires the presence of a dispersing agent, and both inks must have the same ionic character.
A method to control bleed is also disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,790. The ink-jet ink is formulated to comprise at least one dye-based ink composition and at least one pigment-based ink. The dye-base ink also contains a cationic surfactant, and the pigment-base ink contains a negatively charged dispersant.
Another method of reducing bleed between ink-jet inks involves the use of pH-sensitive dyes as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,045. It discloses an ink having a pH-sensitive dye to prevent bleeding to an adjacent ink having an appropriate pH. Migration of the ink having the pH-sensitive dye is prevented by rendering the dye insoluble on the page by contact with the pH of the adjacent ink. This method requires a pH differential of about 4 or 5 units to completely control bleed. Accordingly, a pH not exceeding 4 would be required to effectively eliminate bleed from a pH-sensitive ink having a typical pH of about 8.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,6579,143 builds upon the '045 case referenced above, but an organic acid component is added to the so-called target ink-jet ink composition, as opposed to the pH-sensitive ink composition. The organic acid component reduces the pH differential required to control bleed to about 3 units or less.
While there have been many attempts by industry to produce fast drying inks with good bleed control, a need still remains for ink compositions for use in ink-jet printing which have faster dry time when printed on plain papers as well as maintaining other desirable properties of such inks, such as waterfastness, bleed control, and halo control.